2009 Marco Porello, Roero Arneis, Italy

Pale yellow with a green glint; hard-to-define aroma of grass, herbs, tangerine, and wet stones; medium-weight in the mouth with good lively acidity and a long, very clean finish. Good all-purpose aperitif or wine for antipasti; maybe some salame, some olives...

A young wine producer in Piemonte, who, through lowering his yields in the vineyard, is able to create a rich wine with some depth of flavor.

Indigenous to the Roero (an underestimated growing area near the Langhe), this grape almost died out in the middle part of the twentieth century, but was revived, and is now thriving. It gives wines that tend to be pale in color, and intriguingly herbal in aroma and flavor.